Testing Configuration and Benchmarks Used

To verify that the cooler kit operates up to specs, the Raystorm D5 Photon RX480 V3 water cooling kit was tested with the CPU running at stock and at a known stable overclocking speed using Z77-based and Z87-based motherboards, so that comparative results could be provided for both Ivy Bridge and Haswell-based systems. Additionally, the cooler was run with the CPU at stock and at a known stable overclocking speed using Z87-based motherboard with the GTX 780 graphics card at stock speeds integrated into the cooling loop. The results are presented for the cooling kit under review as well as the XSPC Raystorm 750 EX240 water cooling kit, Koolance EXT-440CU Liquid Cooling System, Cooler Master Glacer 240L liquid cooler, Corsair H100i water cooler, and the Thermalright SilverArrow SB-E air cooler for performance comparison purposes. The benchmark tests used should give you a good understanding of the cooler's capabilities so that you, the reader, can make a more informed purchasing decision. The comparison coolers were selected based on their superior performance capabilities.

The 64-bit Windows 7 based test bench used for Z77 LGA1155 board testing includes an Intel Core i5-3570K CPU, 8GB of DDR3-2133 memory, an MSI R7870 Hawk 2GB video card, and an Intel 520 240GB SSD drive. Using the selected components gives us the ability to demonstrate the cooling system's capabilities rather than that of the system components.

The 64-bit Windows 7 based test bench used for Intel Z87 LGA1150 board testing includes an Intel Core i5-4770K CPU, 16GB of DDR3-1866 memory, ASUS Poseidon GTX 780 3GB graphics card, and a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB SSD drive. Using the selected components gives us the ability to demonstrate the cooling system's capabilities rather than that of the system components.